NEWS30 May 2022
NatureMetrics has raised $15m in new funding, led by urban sustainability-focused VC fund 2150 with participation from Ananda Impact Ventures, SWEN Capital Partners’ Blue Ocean and BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund, and follow-on from Systemiq Capital.
- Nature data requirements expected to surge as it becomes the ‘next carbon’ for data disclosure
- New investors include urban climate tech investor 2150 who leads the round, Ananda Impact Ventures, SWEN Capital Partners’ Blue Ocean fund and the newly-launched BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund
- NatureMetrics new digital SaaS platform will include products to support quantification of net gains on biodiversity and marine health monitoring
- Total funding sits at $26m to date
Based at Surrey Research Park, NatureMetrics has sold its DNA-based biodiversity monitoring products in more than 80 countries, and plans to use the funding to build a series of new digital products to enable its customers to set and monitor long-term targets on nature whilst accelerating its expansion into international markets.
The company already runs two eDNA labs in the UK and Canada, which have delivered comprehensive data from soil, freshwater and marine samples on species from bacteria to blue whales. To date, they have served more than 450 clients across the renewable energy, infrastructure, marine water and banking sectors.
The new investment will enable the team to combine ecological statistics, machine learning and data visualisation to give unparalleled decision-making power to clients in a wide range of sectors critical to a nature-positive economy. The company and its investors are responding to an anticipated surge in nature data requirements from ESG-conscious investors and regulators as nature becomes the ‘next carbon’ for data disclosure.
Katie Critchlow, CEO of NatureMetrics said:
“For too long society has been failing nature because we haven’t had the tools to set and monitor targets. We want to make biodiversity data simple and easy to understand for decision makers.”
She added: “Our labs and our data engine are making sure biodiversity data is delivered at scale and across the whole tree of life, not just what we can see with our eyes. Our new Nature Intelligence team led by our co-founder Professor Doug Yu will take that complex ‘big data’ on nature and enable good decision making by transforming long lists of species into simple metrics which can be discussed in a boardroom and used to drive better investment, buying and impact mitigation decisions.”
Discover more at www.naturemetrics.co.uk